When I Get Where I'm Going
by missemmatorchwood
Summary: "Yeah, when I get where I'm going there'll be only happy tears; I will shed the sins and struggles I have carried all these years. And I'll leave my heart wide open, I will love and have no fear. Yeah, when I get where I'm going Don't cry for me down here."


**When I Get Where I'm Going**

A/N: A gentleman's farm is an extremely small or non-operative farm. They are generally small acreages that are not used to produce large amounts of food, grain, or livestock for major markets. Gentleman's farms are also used as hobby farms, for horse rearing, or as bed and breakfast establishments. The gentleman farmer has an independent source of income and farms for pleasure rather than for money.

Ianto sat at his desk in the Tourist Information Office, frozen in place, his mobile in his hand and a look of utter devastation on his face. He stared unfocused at the wall ahead of him, his mind reeling with dozens of images, his heart pounding like it was trying to burst out of his chest.

"Hey, Yan?" Jack stepped through the hidden door to the Hub. "Wanna get some lunch with me?" Not seeing the man at the office's front counter, he brushed the beaded curtain aside and entered Ianto's inner sanctum. "Ianto? Lunch?"

The Welshman didn't hear him; he was lost in the memory of an older man strolling through a garden with a little boy, hanging on every word the boy uttered as he ran and played, chasing butterflies and rolling in the grass.

"Yan?" Jack laid his hand on Ianto's shoulder, startling him from his reverie. He turned to look at Jack, his eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"What's wrong?" Jack pulled Ianto from his seat, noticing that he held his mobile in his hand. Between that and the look on Ianto's face, it was an easy leap of logic to realise that the young man had received bad news. "Yan? Talk to me."

Jack's voice broke through Ianto's fugue state and he focused on Jack. "He's gone, Jack," he whispered.

Not sure who Ianto was referring to, Jack stroked Ianto's face, a thumb gently wiping a stray tear from his cheek. "Who's gone, Yan?"

"My great-uncle Dafydd is gone." Speaking the words aloud broke the minute control Ianto had on his emotions and tears began pouring down his cheeks. Jack immediately gathered him into his arms, holding him close and feeling his body shake as he sobbed.

Hearing the bead curtain rattle, Jack turned his head to see Toshiko standing there. She didn't say anything, just raised an elegant eyebrow in query.

Sheltering Ianto from view, even from his best friend, Jack shook his head slightly.

Toshiko nodded and quietly slipped away. If… when… Ianto needed her, she'd be there for him.

It took several minutes before Ianto's sobs to dwindled down to a few hiccupping tears and he raised his head from Jack's shoulder with an embarrassed laugh. "Sorry about that," and he dabbed at the wet spot his tears had left on Jack's shirt.

"I've had worse." Jack chuckled. "Did I ever tell you about the time I rescued an infant Hadxist from a runaway pram?"

Ianto smiled at his lover gratefully, knowing the tall tale was intended to give him a chance to collect himself. "No, I don't remember that one. What happened?"

"Well, the first thing you have to know is…" Jack settled back against the desk, drawing Ianto into the V of his legs and pulling him in close. "On Hadxia, they have heavy gravity, and things like shopping trolleys and baby prams all have booster engines on them to help manoeuvre them around."

"Huh," Ianto murmured, "why didn't they use anti-grav units?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "I don't know! I didn't ask them!"

"Well, I think it would make more sense, be easier to control," Ianto argued.

"Do you want to hear the story or not?"

"I always want to hear your stories, Cariad." Ianto stroked the side of Jack's face.

"All right then," Jack kissed the tip of Ianto's nose. "I was there with the Doctor and Rose, we were strolling through the marketplace and we were trying to decide on whether to get the black pears or the black oranges – well, that's pretty much the closest I can come in comparison – when a female starts screaming."

"I'd have thought women screaming around you would be the norm," Ianto quipped mischievously.

"Hey!" Jack tickled Ianto's ribs. "Anyway, I looked around and saw that one of those prams had a misfiring rocket on one side and it was just whirling in circles with the baby inside. I heroically…"

Ianto snickered.

"Heroically," Jack repeated with dramatic emphasis, "I leapt on to the pram, and with great, great risk to life and limb, I crawled beneath the pram which was barely a foot above the ground and moving very erratically. I could have had my head bashed in at any moment!"

Ianto's shoulders shook with silent laughter.

"I managed to disengage the engine – it took all my strength and skill to do it with one hand because I was holding on with the other – and get the pram to a safe stop. I was holding the baby on my shoulder, like you do, waiting for his parental to come claim him when he sicked up all over my shoulder, down my neck and my back." Jack gave a dramatically exaggerated full-body shudder.

An undignified snort escaped Ianto's tightly pursed lips.

"I mean, nobody – not one single person – told me that Hadxist vomit, even their saliva, is toxic and acidic until they're three years old! Let me tell you, I never have figured out how a mother could nurse under those conditions. Anyway, thank the universe it was hot on Hadxia and for once I'd left my coat in the TARDIS. As it was, it took three days in the TARDIS' medical bay for the burns to heal."

Ianto started to raise his arms, intending to comfort the man but then Jack finished his story.

"That was my favourite Hawaiian shirt, too. I found it in the Aloha Galaxy; the lady said it was one-of-a-kind, hand-painted with lots of pictures of different sushi and Hula dancers and Spam cans."

Any thought of making his lover feel better were completely shot to hell when an image of Jack hanging upside down wearing that ridiculous shirt while an alien baby spewed acid like a fountain hit Ianto's brain. Suddenly great brays of laughter filled the air and he bent over forwards, clutching at his stomach.

Again, it took several minutes for Ianto to get himself under control; every time he thought he'd finished laughing, he'd catch a glimpse of Jack's pout, his lower lip stuck out, and he'd burst out with a fit of giggles.

As for Jack, he merely waited patiently, knowing that Ianto's over-the-top laughter was part of his response to the distressing news of his uncle's passing.

Finally, Ianto found himself with just a few tee-hee's left in him and he sagged wearily against Jack. "Sorry about that," he muttered into the man's chest.

"Feel better?" Jack rubbed his back.

"Yeah," Ianto's tone was subdued as the loss of his favourite relative hit him again. "I guess…"

As it was nearly five pm, Jack keyed his comms. "Tosh? If you're sure there's nothing coming from the Rift I'm taking Ianto home."

"There's no activity predicted until Thursday evening and even then, it's something small."

Jack nodded with satisfaction. "Just send the Rift alerts to my wrist strap and then you and Owen head on home too."

Gwen had already left earlier, declaring that "…I never spend any time with Rhys…" and that the last time he'd done the laundry, "…he turned my best undies a weird prune colour."

Owen was still hooting with laughter over the last bit as Gwen stomped out the door.

The remains of an Indian takeaway were scattered across the table in front of the sofa of Ianto's lounge, while cups of fresh steaming coffee held pride of place. Jack and Ianto were looking through a large album full of old – some of them very old – family photos. Ianto was sitting cross-legged balancing the book in his lap while Jack had his arm draped around his young lover's shoulders.

"This one," Ianto pointed reverently. "This is my great-uncle Dafydd. He'd just joined the RAF when this photo was taken. He sent it home to his mam, so she could see how handsome he looked in his uniform. He was only eighteen here, he graduated basic training and was nearly through flight school when the Battle of Britain began. He flew his first mission aged nineteen."

Jack looked at the man standing next to his barracks, wearing his uniform, looking so incredibly proud… and so very, very young. He remembered the missions he'd flown, so many of them, as Germany did everything it could to destroy Britain's coastal-shipping convoys, ports and shipping centres, and then they took aim at RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the Battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in aircraft production and strategic infrastructure. Eventually it employed terror bombing on areas of political significance and on innocent civilians.

He vividly remembered being in London and seeing the horrific scenes that followed each night of bombing, homes in flames, body parts lying in the streets, victims who never made it to the safety of the bomb shelters, the faces of the shattered survivors, the sheer heart-breaking, mind-numbing devastation of war. Ianto's voice brought him out of his reverie.

"Uncle Dafydd was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross." Ianto reached into a small chest on the cushion next to him and pulled out a case, opening it to reveal the beautiful two-inch silver cross hanging from its purple-striped white ribbon. He looked at it for a moment before handing it to Jack.

Jack accepted the medal; he ran a suddenly shaking finger across its highly embellished surface and choked back tears as he was plunged into more memories nearly eight decades old. He remembered the eager young men proudly serving King and Country, benefitting from his training, following his orders, defending their homeland… dying for what they believed in. Nearly five hundred pilots died during the one-hundred-and-fourteen days of what became known historically as the first major military campaign ever fought entirely by air forces. Twenty-three of those brave souls lost were men Jack had trained.

"He gave that to me when I was fifteen." Ianto was lost in his own memories. Dafydd Geraint Jones was his hero and had been all his life. He turned the pages of the album, smiling over photo after photo, reliving moments with his uncle, pointing things out to Jack.

"I came out to Uncle Dafydd when I was ten years old."

Those words truly caught Jack's attention. "Huh?" He gently closed the medal's case and handed it back to Ianto, effectively closing the door on his memories. "You what?"

"Billy McCain was my best friend that school year." Ianto grinned. "His big brother, Paddy, stole one of their da's porno magazines. Billy stole it from him and brought it over one Saturday. Mam was going to spend a few hours with my mam-gu that afternoon and she left Rhiannon in charge; Mam said me and Billy were supposed to stay in the kitchen and work on a science project that was due on Monday but Rhi's boyfriend came over, so she sent us to my room."

Jack pictured Ianto as a ten-year-old boy and found the image absolutely adorable. "Is there a picture of you in there from when you were ten?"

"Hmmm…" Ianto flipped towards the back of the album and after searching for a moment he found an old school picture. "Actually, I was eleven in this one."

Awww! You were so cute!"

Ianto blushed self-consciously. "I was not, I was…"

"Yes, you were." Jack kissed the side of Ianto's head. "Okay, how about you were adorable. Delightful. Charming. Delicious. Sweet. Yummy."

"Stop it!" Ianto reached forward and snagged Jack's mug of coffee, waving it under his nose as a distraction.

The tactic worked a charm as Jack immediately latched onto the mug and took a deep sniff of the enticing aroma before taking a long sip. "I don't care how cute you were as a kid as long as you grew into a man who can make liquid gold."

"Thank you." Ianto drank from his own mug, silently agreeing with Jack.

"Now, where were we in the story? You had just been banished to your room, I believe?"

Ianto settled back, cradling his mug. "I figured we could play with my Matchbox cars or something, but that's when Billy took the magazine out of his bag. We stayed in my room looking at the pictures all afternoon until Mam came back and sent Billy home. But that's when I knew." He looked at Jack. "While Billy was being a nutta over the girls and talking endlessly about how many boobs he was going to get his hands on when he got to high school, I was fascinated by the guys. I couldn't stop looking at their chests and their abs and all their boy bits."

"No kidding," Jack tousled Ianto's hair. "Wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that."

"Actually, it was kind of scary, it was hard being different at that age. Billy started bragging about seeing naked women first thing Monday morning when we got to school, and I was so afraid that someone would find out that I didn't feel the same way."

Jack frowned, seeing the problem from Ianto's boyhood point of view. "I am sorry, Yan, I grew up when there was no distinction between gay and straight; we all just were."

"You were lucky," Ianto agreed. "I remember there was a boy in year eleven who was beaten almost to death when a girl he'd jilted for her best friend decided to get revenge and she spread the rumour around school that he 'couldn't perform' because he was gay. But he wasn't he was straight as an arrow."

"Ianto, that's awful!"

"That was life on the estates back then," Ianto shrugged. "I'm not sure it's changed too much even now. Homosexuality was legalised in Wales in 1967, but it's still a big taboo among the rougher types. Just last month Rhi told me that right across the street from her a car belonging to a lesbian couple was vandalised and their house were spray-painted with homophobic slurs. Their kids go to school with Mica and David, and now she's worried about them going over there to play, in case something worse happens."

Unable to come up with a suitable response, Jack pulled Ianto into a tight hug, tucking his head down onto his shoulder and burying his head in his young lover's hair, breathing in the scent of him. He shuddered as he thought about what could have happened to little boy Ianto if that rough element had discovered that he was gay.

After a few moments, Ianto sighed deeply. "Water under the bridge now. Fortunately, it was the end of the school year, and since I came first in my class my parents rewarded me by sending me to stay with Uncle Dafydd for the summer." He straightened up and turned the pages of the album back to photographs of Dafydd Jones. He tapped one with his finger.

"This is Uncle Nigel. He and Dafydd met during flight school, they flew dozens of sorties against the Luftwaffe, they even got shot down on the same day within minutes of each other and parachuted into the same wheat field together. As a result they considered each other their lucky charm and nobody questioned it when they became inseparable; everybody had their own talisman to bring them home safely. Some had pictures of loved ones back home, or a handkerchief given to them by a wife or girlfriend, or just some superstitiously lucky object."

Jack nodded. "I carried the key to a room in a boarding house I kept off-base, where I could entertain special people or just get away from everything when it got too much. I figured that since I kept up the rent then I would always come home to use the room."

Ianto smiled fondly; Jack had told him about some of those 'special' people, lonely women who worked in the factories and on the assembly lines, and a few men brave enough to follow their natural instincts.

"After the war, Dafydd and Nigel retired from the military and came to Cardiff. Dafydd opened a haberdashery; he told me he learned to be a tailor when he was young at his grandfather's knee."

"Ah… it runs in the family, I see."

"You'd think, but Dafydd Jones is me mam's side of the family not my tad's. Apparently, her being a Jones and then marrying a Jones made for a lot of laughs at the reception." Ianto smiled. "My tad being a tailor was just a coincidence. Makes for a very small world, yeah?"

Jack chuckled. "You'll be pleased to know that the surname Jones lives on as humanity goes out into the stars. There were three Joneses in my class alone at the Time Agency Academy, each one from a different quadrant."

Ianto turned to look at Jack, thinking he was joking. "You're kidding, right?"

"On Myfanwy's life," Jack raised a hand, "I swear."

"Wow!" Ianto was inordinately pleased to learn that his family's shared name would live on for millennia after he'd passed on.

"Anyway," he pointed to a photo of two men standing close together yet not touching. "Uncle Nigel inherited a small farm from his brother who succumbed to wounds from Dunkirk. Today it's called a gentleman's farm, one of those small-acreage ones that's just used for pleasure or weekend stays and doesn't make any money. Nigel's was about ten acres, with a lovely farmhouse – one of those old ones, with the big kitchen and the big Aga and the table the size of an estate wagon."

Jack smiled as a memory popped into his head. "There's nothing like a lovely warm Aga to back up to when you come in from a cold winter's day with a frozen bum."

Ianto laughed brightly. "Uncle Dafydd used to say the same thing!"

"It's the truth!" Jack protested. "I like my arse to be cosy warm."

"I like your arse too, Cariad." Ianto kissed the older man. "I like it very much."

Several minutes passed as more kisses were exchanged and passion built until the noise of the Jones' family photo album hitting the floor brought the men to their senses.

"Oops!" Jack quickly retrieved the book but the spell was broken.

"How about I make us some fresh coffee?" Ianto untwisted his legs and stretched. "I don't know about you, but I could use the loo."

Fifteen minutes later, with empty bladders and full coffee cups, Ianto and Jack settled down on the sofa.

"One afternoon that summer I was playing in the barn, up in the hayloft and I found an empty Barn Swallow's nest that still had bits of eggshell stuck to it and I went running into the kitchen to show off my treasure and I found Nigel and Dafydd kissing. They broke apart and turned bright red and stammered a few nonsensical words and then Nigel dashed out to the barn and Dafydd put the kettle on."

"What did you do?"

Ianto shrugged. "I showed him the nest I found. I thought it was the coolest thing cos there was a half an eggshell stuck to the inside and it was so tiny!"

A fond look filled Jack's face as he envisioned an excited little boy running around, discovering things that would truly amaze a ten-year-old city boy, like grasshoppers, frogs, bird nests, field mice… it warmed Jack's heart that Ianto had gotten the chance to experience nature first-hand.

Ianto blew across the surface of his coffee before sipping at it. "That night at dinner, Dafydd and Nigel brought up the subject of what I'd seen in the kitchen, and that it wasn't anything to be afraid of, but I told them it was okay, cos I liked boys too." Ianto smiled softly. "Uncle Dafydd dropped the serving spoon back into the pot of cawl, splashing broth all over the place and knocking potatoes and carrots onto the table, but poor Uncle Nigel had a mouthful of milk and he spewed it across the table and he hit Dafydd who was sitting right across from him square in the face." Ianto burst into child-like giggles. "I remember it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen, and I laughed til I fell off my chair."

"Wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see that," Jack smiled over the top of his coffee mug.

"After we got everything cleaned up and finished dinner, we sat back down and had fresh berries with cream from Nigel's cow for dessert. I distinctly remember how casual Uncle Dafydd was, like my answer didn't mean a thing, but he asked me what I meant when I said liked boys.

"I explained about Billy and his tad's magazine, and about really liking all the boy bits but not caring one whit about the boobs."

"So how did Lisa happen?" Jack's eyes grew wide and he immediately regretted asking but he was beyond relieved that he realised that he hadn't upset Ianto with his rather insensitive question.

"I guess she just slipped in under the radar. I'd had girlfriends off and on through high school, but we were really more just friends than anything else. I was safe to be around and their parents all loved me; always thought I was the perfect gentleman. Don't get me wrong, we did a bit of show-me-yours-and-I'll-show-you-mine back then, but that was as far as it went."

The idea of playing show-and-tell with Ianto sent Jack's brain spinning off into a whole other world and he wondered how tacky it would be if he tried it on when they went to bed that night.

"Over the years I've always wondered what people thought about Nigel and Dafydd," Ianto spoke slowly, as though composing his thoughts as he went on. "Did people know they were gay? I mean, back then it was illegal to be homosexual. They could have been arrested and thrown into prison for Homosexual Buggery. The world may not have been as backward and narrow-minded as during the forties and fifties, but still…"

Jack shuddered involuntarily as he was visited by an old memory. "I lost a very good friend back in the early fifties who committed suicide rather than face going to trial and being convicted of gross indecency. Calvin had been a prisoner of war, and the idea of being locked up in again was just too much for him. He went out to the top of the Dover cliffs and shot himself with his service revolver, a Webley just like mine. He left a note under a rock saying that when he'd been released from the German POW camp he only believed he was home in England when he finally saw the White Cliffs of Dover appear, that they were the most beautiful sight in the world. Said they were the last thing he wanted to see."

Ianto turned to look at Jack, seeing the pain in his eyes even after the passage of so many decades and he pulled him into his arms, hugging him tightly. "I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

With a soft sigh, Jack let Ianto hold him, grateful for all the men like Calvin, Nigel and Dafydd, amongst thousands of others who'd come before and who now allowed him and Ianto to celebrate their love openly and freely.

With Toshiko's help, Ianto took the precious photos from the album, some of them faded and yellowed, and restored them. Dafydd had bequeathed him the collection of photographs a few years after Nigel passed away; Tosh reproduced them and Ianto displayed them on tables either side of the casket. Atop the coffin Ianto placed Dafydd's favourite photo of him and Nigel. In their early eighties, the men were standing side by side in their farmhouse kitchen, their arms around one another's waist, their eyes meeting in a look that showed the depths of their true love for one another. Ianto had taken it and given it to them as an anniversary present.

Nodding to the minister, Ianto squeezed Jack's hand and then stepped up to the podium. "Dafydd Geraint Jones was a remarkable human being and he taught me how be the man…" his voice broke and he had to clear his throat before he could continue. "He taught me how to be the man I am today. I don't believe anyone else has ever touched me or loved me or accepted me the way he did." Ianto looked at Jack, his eyes filled with love. "Until I met you, Cariad."

As the funeral began to draw to a close, after Dafydd's friends had said their eulogies, after the Bible verses and prayers had been read, after the hymns had been played, Ianto again took the podium, remarking that "Dafydd Jones was a devout church-goer, and for as long as I can recall he never missed Sunday service. Whenever I spent the summer with him and Uncle Nigel we went to church and I remember his favourite song he used to sing in the car on the way home. It's called 'When I Get Where I'm Going', and I think it speaks to the heart and the soul."

In the beautiful singing voice that the Welsh were so gifted with, Ianto began to sing.

"Yeah, when I get where I'm going

There'll be only happy tears

I will shed the sins and struggles

I have carried all these years..."

With a lurch, Jack realised that Ianto was singing to him as though he were the only person in the church.

"And I'll leave my heart wide open

I will love and have no fear

Yeah, when I get where I'm going

Don't cry for me down here."

Jack suddenly felt his heart break, shattering into a million tiny shards; with intense clarity he understood what his beloved Welshman was trying to tell him, but he knew that no matter what, he would always mourn the loss of the other half of his soul. Blinking back his tears, Jack smiled at his beloved Welshman, hoping that in some small way, Ianto knew how very much he was loved.

The following month passed quickly, filled with Weevil hunts, artefact retrievals and even the visitation of a sight-seeing couple from Reltring Three on their honeymoon whose small spacecraft landed in a field full of sheep late one night. They'd been gifted with a few souvenirs from Ianto's Tourist Information Centre and sent on their way before sunrise.

Finally the day came when there was a break in Rift and Weevil activity and Jack and Ianto were quick to take full advantage of. They packed a lunch and two thermoses of coffee and leaving Owen in charge for the afternoon they launched Torchwood's small cabin cruiser from its hidden moorings. They'd headed out of Cardiff Bay and were soon drifting slowly in the Bristol Channel a short distance from Barry Island.

Jack held the urn containing Nigel's ashes while Ianto had his Uncle Dafydd's urn in his arms, hugging it close to his heart. He'd been dreading this day; even though he knew the man was long gone, it was hard to let go of his remains. Finally he blinked away his tears and let to a deep sigh.

"I'm ready, Cariad."

As they tipped the ashes into the sea and watch them mingle in the waves Ianto smiled. "After nearly fifteen years apart, you're together again forever, Nigel Bartholomew Davenport and Dafydd Geraint Jones. May the Lord send Angels to guide you on your way. May his love surround you, day by day. May the Lord send Angels to save you from the night, wrap His arms around you and hold you tight."

"That's beautiful, Yan." Jack took Ianto's hand in his.

"I don't remember where I heard it but it's always stuck with me."

After watching the waves absorb the last of the ashes, Ianto turned to Jack. "Please promise me something, Cariad?"

"Anything for you, Yan," Jack nodded.

"When I'm gone, please don't put me down in the morgue and leave me there forever. And please don't bury me; I don't want to just rot away in a coffin."

"Ianto…" Jack couldn't swallow past the lump in his throat.

"Promise me that you'll have me cremated and then spread my ashes like this." Ianto looked down at the water, smiling at the memory of his uncles' ashes floating away on the waves, beginning their next great adventure together.

"Mmm…" Jack tried again. "Yan, I…"

"But you know," Ianto turned and wrapped his arms around Jack's waist, giving him a coy smile. "If you just so happened to find my remains in your pocket when you're on some beautiful distant planet, you could scatter me there."

"Oh, I could, could I?" Jack gently kissed Ianto's lips.

"Yeah, and then you could come and visit me any time you wanted."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Jack agreed with another kiss, knowing in his heart that he had other plans for Ianto once he'd passed away.

End

When I Get Where I'm Going

Songwriters: George Teren, Rivers Rutherford

When I get where I'm going

On the far side of the sky

The first thing that I'm gonna do

Is spread my wings and fly

I'm gonna land beside a lion

And run my fingers through his mane

Or I might find out what it's like

To ride a drop of rain

Yeah, when I get where I'm going

There'll be only happy tears

I will shed the sins and struggles

I have carried all these years

And I'll leave my heart wide open

I will love and have no fear

Yeah, when I get where I'm going

Don't cry for me down here

I'm gonna walk with my granddaddy

And he'll match me step for step

And I'll tell him how I missed him

Every minute since he left

Then I'll hug his neck

Yeah, when I get where I'm going

There'll be only happy tears

I will shed the sins and struggles

I have carried all these years

And I'll leave my heart wide open

I will love and have no fear

Yeah, when I get where I'm going

Don't cry for me down here

So much pain and so much darkness

In this world we stumble through

All these questions I can't answer

So much work to do

But when I get where I'm going

And I see my Maker's face

I'll stand forever in the light

Of His amazing grace

Yeah when I get where I'm going

There'll be only happy tears

Hallelujah

I will love and have no fear

When I get where I'm going

Yeah, when I get where I'm going


End file.
